Are you really thinking through your next career move?

Jobs aren’t for Christmas….they are for life and when you are thinking about making the move, it’s an important decision that you really need to think through.

Perhaps you’re at the stage in your career where you are no longer progressing and want to keep developing, or perhaps it logistically no longer makes sense for you, and you need a little more flexibility.  So, you decide you’re going to start a new job search. You open your computer and log on to CharityJobs to find an absolute minefield of opportunities and there’s one of two things that happens – You either become horrendously overwhelmed and decide, ‘now isn’t the time’, or you decide it’s easier to simply apply for anything and everything and see what happens. Either way, you aren’t going to get the outcome that you want. The job search can easily become very daunting and perhaps we don’t spend as much time as we should try to determine ‘what am I looking for’ and ‘what do I want out of my next step?’

If you’re lucky enough to have worked with us at Ashby Jenkins Recruitment, you’ll know that we really like to spend time understanding what drives you and motivates you, so that we can help tailor your search and find you the role that is right for you. But are you doing this for yourself? Or are you reacting too quickly without thinking about what you really need?

Here are a few things that you can ask yourself so you can make sure you’re applying for the right roles for you. After all, who wants to waste people’s time applying for a role they don’t want, doing two interviews and then disappearing off the face of the earth? You know who you are.

What do you enjoy about your role?

A simple and very informative question to ask yourself when considering your next role. Make space to sit and really consider what you enjoy in your current role, is it spending time stewarding donors? Do you really enjoy deep diving into data to determine why your campaign was a success? Is line management for you? Do you like office politics?

Take the time to really think about what your favourite elements of your role are, and you can then use that to inform your job search, looking for a role which incorporates more of those elements.

What’s missing in your current role?

An oldie but a goldie, what are you not doing that you would really like to start doing more of? Now we know what we enjoy in our roles, we can start to consider other elements that we would really like to learn, develop and add to our skillset. It is, of course, important to consider what transferable skills and understanding you have of these skills so that when interviewing, you can demonstrate a genuine passion and commitment to learning more.

What’s the big picture?

Broadening things out a little, it can often be good to think about where you want to be in 5/10 years time and establish what steps you need to take to get there. Would you like to eventually be a Head of Philanthropy & Partnerships? Would you like to work in a more creative role? Brilliant – what skills and experience do you have that is applicable, and what do you need to develop more to get into that role? These are all great things to take into consideration and can often inform our job search with the bigger picture in mind.

Am I being realistic?

It’s great to be ambitious, we applaud it, but sometimes we do have to think to ourselves – is this a realistic next step? You might find yourself blinded by a dazzling salary increase and want to immediately jump the gun, but it’s important to consider whether that will really make you happy, what they’re looking for and if you really do have the skills and experience to go for it.

Doing this will save you time in writing an application for a job that is just out of reach at the moment, but as with above, also help provide insight into the kind of roles you’d like to progress into and what skills you need to develop in order to get there.

To sum up,

It’s easy to become overwhelmed when starting your job search, but by asking yourself the above questions, you’re going to help narrow down your search and make sure you’re applying for the roles you actually want, as a pose to wasting your time on roles that aren’t right for what you’re looking for.

You can, of course, also reach out to us. We’ll spend time getting to know your experience and what you’re ideally looking for, so that we can tailor the search down for you and make sure that you’re only applying for the roles which are right for you.

So, if you’re just about to start your search, give me a call on 020 3006 2787, or email me at [email protected]